Mexico City is my archive

My first full day in Mexico City, I went with a new friend who is a historian to Mexico's national archives. The most fascinating thing to me about these archives is that they are housed in the Palacio Negro de Lecumberri which was formerly a Jeremy Bentham-style paniopticon. As you can see in the old photograph below, there were seven different wings that housed the prisoners, with the prison guards situated in the center such that the prisoners were always under surveillance. Online, I found a quote from a 1900 newspaper that said that "no ha faltado delincuente que declare preferir la pena de muerte, a la prisión en la Penitenciaria" (every single criminal [that was being transferred to the Palacio Negro] declared that they preferred the death penalty to the new penitentiary).  

Exterior of the Palacio Negro

Anyway, to me it's a fascinating and eerie place with a significant history (in many cases not flattering to those in power) that has now been—somewhat ironically—transformed into the national archives.

A lot of the people that I have met here work in this place all day long. Each wing of the former prison is a gallery in the archives where people spend hours and hours each day. One historian I met told me before she left town, "You just need to go down to the archives and hang out there." Sounds awesome, right? Aahh!! I can't think of anything worse! Archival research has its interesting elements, but who wants to sit in an archive all day when you are in Mexico City?

Old aerial photograph of the Palacio Negro

So, my job while I am here is to explore as much of the city as I can. Sometimes people say to me, "Why do you want to go there? There's nothing to see there." But that's not true! There is always something to see, and if it's not interesting, that's definitely something too. What is it about that place that isn't interesting? And why?

Anyway, in my next posts, I'm going to try to give you guys a glimpse at the different sections of the city that I have visited while I've been here.